Posts tagged with “Mad Men”

Didja hear about the Mad Men Barbies? To coincide with the Emmy-winning AMC series’ fourth season premiere in July, Mattel is releasing a set of Mad Men-themed dolls, featuring Barbie dolls in the likenesses of Don Draper (Jon Hamm), Betty Draper (January Jones), Roger Sterling (John Slattery) and Joan Holloway (Christina Hendricks). The dolls will cost $74.95 each, and no, they won’t come with accessories like cigarettes and tiny glasses of vodka for those 10AM meetings with Ken, Barbie and Skipper.

A few suggestions for other TV dolls Mattel might consider adding to the collection:

– Lost – I personally want a Hurley doll, because he remains the coolest of the island castaways, but show fans could create their own love triangle with Barbie versions of Jack, Kate and Sawyer. Optional accessories: Dharma-brand chocolate bars, a hatch to replace the Barbie Dream House and an Oceanic Airlines plane (which can be split in half, of course).

– 24 – This Jack Bauer doll would come with an audio chip, allowing Jack to utter phrases like “Damnit!” “Chloe, I need the location now!” and “I’m gonna need a hacksaw.” Jack would come with his magic Jack bag, filled with cell phone, laptop and CTU badge, while Tony Almeida, David Palmer, Chloe O’Brian and Kim Bauer dolls would also round out the set, and yes, the Kim doll would come with a plastic mountain lion.

– American Idol – Actually, only a Simon Cowell doll. He’ll come with a week’s worth of black Armani t-shirts and the ability to roll his eyes at the other dolls.

– Big Love – Let’s have Barbie versions of Bill Henrickson and his three wives. But warning to the other female dolls in your collection: Now that Bill’s gone public with his polygamy, he could be looking to add to his brood. Run, Barbies, run!

– Classic female TV stars– Nothing snarky here. Mattel has Barbie versions of Lucy and her chocolate factory adventure, Goldie Hawn on Laugh-In and Carol Burnett and the curtain dress, but where’s the Mary Tyler Moore doll, with the little beret she tosses up in the air? And the Betty White doll, both Mary Tyler Moore Show and Golden Girls versions? Tina Fey as Liz Lemon and from her Saturday Night Live news co-anchor stint … Bea Arthur, Golden Girls and Maude versions … Roseanne as Roseanne? What other TV or pop culture stars would you like to see immortalized in the Barbie universe?

– From backstage at the Emmys: Alec Baldwin says 30 Rock producers are trying to line up PaulMcCartney as a guest, and Mad Men creator Matt Weiner says “something big is about to happen” on his Best Drama-winning series.

– Meanwhile, today marks the official launch of the new fall TV season, and, heads up, tonight’s biggest new series premiere, CBS’ Jenna Elfman comedy Accidentally on Purpose, is not indicative of the season’s other new comedies, which are actually funny.

– More great ratings news: The season five premiere of It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia drew 2.2 million viewers, a 22 percent increase from last season, and no small feat for a show in its fifth season. And, after the great ratings for the Sons of Anarchy season two premiere, it’s another big win for FX, which is as buzzworthy as any cable network these days.

– David Letterman is getting all political, as the New York Times points out, with tonight’s entire LateShow episode devoted to one guest: President Obama.

– E! Online reports that Beverly Hills 90210 bad girl Shannen Doherty is shopping a new reality series in which she’ll set out to prove she’s not the bee-otch everyone thinks she is. One person who would likely disagree with that: Melissa Gilbert, who worked with Doherty on Little House on the Prairie, and who writes in her recent autobiography, Prairie Tale: A Memoir, about Doherty’s fling with Gilbert’s then-husband.

– And the best line from TLC’s promo copy for its upcoming series My Monkey Baby, in which a human couple raises a monkey like it’s a human: “How strong is the parent/monkey bond?” This could potentially make those child beauty pageant shows look almost normal.

– And tonight in primetime:

– Dr. House finds himself in the psych ward on the sixth season premiere (8PM ET, Fox)
– Barney and Robin are coupled on the fifth season premiere of How I Met Your Mother (8PM, CBS)
– The truth about Mac’s death emerges on Lincoln Heights (8PM, ABC Family)
– Dan introduces his new wife on One Tree Hill (8PM, The CW)
– Hopefully we can understand what the frick is going on as the fourth season of Heroes (8PM, NBC) premieres
– Another season, another batch of D-listers as Dancing With the Stars kicks off its ninth season (8PM, ABC)
– Charlie Sheen and company start season seven of Two and a Half Men on CBS (9PM)
– Georgina gets bee-otchy with Blair on Gossip Girl (9PM, The CW)
– Casey and Evan unwittingly eat some, ahem, special brownies on Greek (9PM, ABC Family)
– A new Unwrapped (9PM, Food Network) is all about toasted foods
– Third season of The Big Bang Theory at 9:30PM on CBS
– CSI: Miami premieres season eight at 10PM (CBS)
– Taylor considers quitting on the Rachel Zoe Project (10PM, Bravo)
– The awesome Nathan Fillion goes for his sophomore season as Castle (10PM, ABC)
– Brick City (10PM, Sundance) is a must-see miniseries about the trouble-plagued city of Newark, New Jersey
– Jennifer Garner guests on The Jay Leno Show (10PM, NBC)

NEW SERIES ALERTS:
– ACCIDENTALLY ON PURPOSE (8:30PM, CBS) Jenna Elfman plays a thirtysomething woman who gets knocked up during a one-night-stand with a twentysomething dude and decides to move in with him – as friends – during her pregnancyVERDICT: Utterly skippable

Neil Patrick Harris hosting, great presenters like Michael J. Fox, Tina Fey, Jon Hamm, JustinTimberlake, Kevin Bacon and Kyra Sedgwick (presenting together), Ricky Gervais and KieferSutherland … this year’s Emmy telecast (Sunday, 8PM ET, CBS) has the potential to be the best one in recent years. Too bad networks like AMC and HBO decided to go ahead and roll out new episodes of Mad Men and Curb Your Enthusiasm on the same night. Program those DVRs now …

In the meantime, here are my picks for who should and will – not always the same, certainly – take home Emmy statues Sunday night:

OUTSTANDING COMEDY SERIESNominees:30 Rock
Entourage
Family Guy
Flight of the Conchords
How I Met Your Mother
The Office
Weeds

Should win: Of those nominees? 30 Rock, for sure. Would have been nice to see Chuck and It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia get well-deserved nods, but alas …Will win:30 Rock.

LEAD ACTOR IN A COMEDY SERIESNominees:Alec Baldwin,30 RockSteve Carell, The OfficeJemaine Clement, The Flight of the ConchordsJim Parsons, The Big Bang TheoryTony Shaloub, MonkCharlie Sheen, Two and a Half Men

Should win: Who doesn’t love Jim Parsons, a first-time nominee for Big Bang Theory? Still, Alec Baldwin’s 30 Rock role is the role he’s always been meant to play, and he’s just so fantastic in it, that I have to give it to him.Will win: Baldwin. Clement and Parsons would also be cool, but if any of the other three win – Shaloub, again(?!?!) … Sheen: He’s just playing himself … Carell: It was not the best season for The Office – it’s really just more proof that a big number of Emmy voters don’t actually watch much TV.

LEAD ACTRESS IN A COMEDY SERIESNominees:Christina Applegate, Samantha Who?Toni Collette, United States of TaraTina Fey, 30 RockJulia Louis-Dreyfus, The New Adventures of Old ChristineMary-Louise Parker, WeedsSarah Silverman, The Sarah Silverman Program

Should win: Tina Fey. She’s the funniest chick on TV, hands down.Will win: Fey. Because I’m certainly not the only one who thinks so.

Should win: Jack McBrayer! The biggest, most welcome surprise of the nominations announcements was his nod, and after Tina Fey and Alec Baldwin, his performance as naïve, TV-lovin’ Kenneth the Page is the best part of 30 Rock. Tracy Morgan, as well, would be a deserving winner, and, of course, you can never go wrong with NPH for anything.Will win: Harris. And as much as I’d like to see McBrayer win, there would be something extra cool about seeing NPH accept the award while he’s also hosting the show. As for the others … Cryer: meh. Dillon: Has deserved it in the past. Wilson: He’s not even the best supporting actor on The Office anymore; Ed Helms should have gotten that spot.

Should win: Perkins. She’s been hilarious since About Last Night, and she continues to steal every scene she’s in as the deliciously bee-otchy, plotting, sometimes deranged Celia on Weeds.Will win: Wiig. It felt like she was the only performer on SNL in some episodes last season.

Should win:Sons of Anarchy should have gotten a nomination (as should 24), and I would have put In Treatment on the list above House, at the least. Those oversights aside, Breaking Bad and Mad Men would both be fine winners, though a true surprise, albeit completely deserving one, would be Big Love, whose third season was far and away the show’s best.Will win:Mad Men. Don’t think the Emmy folks are looking to go out on a limb, and a repeat win by Mad Men is the safest bet.

Should win: No nod for Kiefer Sutherland? Pffft. So okay, it should be Bryan Cranston. His is a tough role, and it’s still a great surprise to see the man who was Tim Whatley and Malcolm’s dad Hal pull off such an amazing performance in such an intense drama.Will win: Hamm. Not that he doesn’t deserve it – he does – but it just feels like this is the year that Emmy wants to reward Mad Men across the board.

Should win: Katey Sagal, Sons of Anarchy‘s motorcycle mama, who isn’t even nominated, in one of the biggest oversights amongst this year’s nominations.Will win: Moss. Mad Men is a great show, hers was a great performance (the scene where she finally tells Pete about the baby, alone, earned her a nod), and again, I think the Emmy folks will take any excuse they can get to give the series another award.

Should win: Aaron Paul. It’s no small feat to stand out alongside Bryan Cranston’s incredible BreakingBad act, but Paul, who does double duty in cable dramas with his role on Big Love, hangs with Cranston scene-for-scene. Oh, but, by the way: Carlos Bernard totally should have gotten a nod for bringing Tony Almeda back from the dead on 24.Will win: I think Paul has a good shot. If not him, it’ll be Slattery, who also is fantastic in the role of his career. Just please, please, please, Emmy folk, no more Emmys for the Boston Legal gang. It’s good that Shatner finally got a statue (two, actually, for playing Denny Crane on BL and The Practice), but that show was over-the-top unwatchable well before ABC booted it, so let’s just allow it to ride off into the TV land sunset, hmmm?

Should win: Elizabeth Mitchell, who wasn’t even nominated as Lost‘s Juliet, unfortunately. Of those who were nominated, Jones was terrific as the first female POTUS on 24.Will win: Oh or Wilson, as the Emmy voters apparently have not yet recognized that the entire GA line-up is packed with TV’s most self-involved, whiny, annoying characters.

Now let’s hear hear your predictions … anybody think, for example, that there’s any way 30 Rock won’t take home another Outstanding Comedy Series statue?

– The next season of 24may be its last. Sad news – it’s my all-time favorite TV drama – but it’s gotta be one of the most exhausting shows to make, for the cast, crew and writers. Besides, the end of the series will likely mean a big-screen movie (or movies), so we’ve got that going for us, which is nice.

– Variety has an early review for next week’s third season premiere of Mad Men, and it’s a very positive one.

– This story alleges that the reason Jon Gosselin is so in demand is because women want to save him and they feel he’s misunderstood. Or perhaps it’s just that these women are just that desperate for their own little piece of reality infamy, even if they have to go through an Ed Hardy-obsessed d-bag to get it. But that’s just my theory.

– And this story, which goes into detail about The Real Housewives of New York City star Bethanny Frankel‘s pregnancy testing experiences, is really, really too much information.

FRIDAY
– NBC’s fantastic cop drama Southland is re-airing throughout the summer (8PM ET)
– Shark attack survivor Bethany Hamilton is a contestants on Are You Smarter Than a 5th Grader (8PM, Fox)
– Denzel Washington, James Caan and Quentin Tarantino are the guests on FridayNight with Jonathan Ross (8PM, BBCA)
– Surviving Suburbia season finale on ABC (8PM)
– 24‘s heroic Aaron Pierce, a.k.a. actor Glenn Morshower, guests on Mental at 9PM on Fox
– Elizabeth Perkins guest stars on the eighth (and final) season premiere of Monk on USA (9PM)
– Lock ‘n Load with R. Lee Ermey (9PM) examines the history of the military tank
– Eureka‘s teens are acting mighty strange (9PM, SyFy)
– Cesar helps a ‘fraidy cat, er dog, named Roscoe on Dog Whisperer (9PM, NGC)
– Discovery Channel re-airs its scary, fact-based Shark Week movie Blood in the Water, the story that inspired Jaws (9PM)
– A Red Cross employee gets new duds on What Not to Wear (9PM, TLC)
– The Goode Family wraps its first season on ABC (9:30PM)
– Psych returns for its fourth season (yay!) with Cary Elwes guest-starring as an international art thief who eludes Lassiter, Shawn and Gus (10PM, USA)
– The Soup is cookin’ up some pop culture funny at 10PM (E!)
– IFC has part two of three of the Chris Kattan miniseries Bollywood Hero (10PM)
– It’s chefs vs. foodies in a big-city battle on the series premiere of Food Network’s Chefs vs.City (10PM)
– The team tries can keep a cool Gibson Les Paul guitar if they can prevent it from burning up in a fire on Catch It Keep It (10PM, Science)

SATURDAY
– Three full hours of Unwrapped eps on the Food Network (8PM)
– Dogs are behaving badly on back-to-back eps of In the Dog House on Animal Planet (8PM)
– A truck driver tries to win $1 million on NBC’s new poker series Face the Ace (9PM)
– Bill gives money to his scheming bro on The Bill Engvall Show (9PM, TBS)
– SyFy’s guilty pleasure movie of the week: Infestation (9PM)
– BBCA has a new ep (9PM) of its new drama Being Human
– It’s the series finale of Dirty Sexy Money (10PM, ABC)
– Bollywood Hero concludes on IFC (10PM)
– George Lopez does his stand-up act in George Lopez: Tall, Dark and Chicano (10PM, HBO)

SUNDAY
– Who Wants to Be a Millionaire celebrates its 10th anniversary with a limited-run return, with original host Regis Philbin (8PM, ABC)
– Nominations for the next eviction are revealed on Big Brother 11 (8PM, CBS)
– The Bills and the Titans play an exhibition game at the Pro football Hall of Fame in Canton on NBC (8PM)
– Ruby‘s (8PM, Style) tries to recall her forgotten childhood
– Eight neighboring families are walled off into a community where they compete for a $250,000 prize on the series premiere of There Goes the Neighborhood (9PM, CBS)
– Office Space star Ron Livingston is an astronaut who embarks on a long mission to Venus in the new ABC drama series Defying Gravity (9PM)
– Deb wigs about Jane’s birthday on Drop Dead Diva (9PM, Lifetime)
– Eric’s arrival changes things for Sookie on True Blood (9PM, HBO)
– It’s the eighth season finale of Law & Order: Criminal Intent (9PM, USA)
– Admitted gold digger Megan Hauserman tries to land a rich dude on her Rock of Love spin-off Megan Wants a Millionaire (9PM, VH1)
– A bride asks her hubby-to-be to sell blood to pay for her hair appointment on Bridezillas (9PM, WE)
– Tornados (9PM) and lighting (10PM) are the subjects of Raging Planet episodes on Discovery Channel
– On Ice Road Truckers (9PM, History), there are just two weeks left in the season
– The fourth season of America’s Best Dance Crew premieres on MTV (9PM)
– ABC has the series premiere of Shark Tank (9PM), where people pitch their inventions to potential investors
– On a new In Plain Sight on USA (10PM), a political activist hates her new home
– Back-to-back new episodes of Pawn Stars on History Channel (10 and 10:30PM)
– On Hung (10PM, HBO), Jessica forces Ronnie to tell her the truth about their new financial situation
– A couple asks for a peacock cake on Amazing Wedding Cakes (10PM, WE)
– Country singer Shelby Lynne guests on Army Wives (10PM, Lifetime)
– Jesse tries to escape from a burning vehicle on Jesse James Is a Dead Man (10PM, Spike)
– Vince and Drama golf with (guest stars) Tom Brady and (series producer) Mark Wahlberg on Entourage (10:30PM, HBO)

– Here’s official proof that anyone can get a reality series these days: Tobey Maguire‘s mom – yes, Spider-Man’s mama – is working on a reality series that will focus on her attempts with her other son, 15-year-old Weston, to remain normal in the shadow of her famous son’s Hollywood life. Next up: the guy who waves at you when you drive by his house while he’s mowing the lawn gets his own reality show.

– No surprise here: Both Burn Notice and Royal Painshave been renewed on USA Network. The shows’ popularity led to USA ending July as the most-watched cable network on the tube.

– Prison Break star Robert Knepper and his evil Samuel will be a regular on the fourth season of Heroes, and The Hollywood Reporter has a preview clip of the new season.

– Pre-season research is indicating that CBS’ NCIS spin-off NCIS: Los Angeles and The Jay Leno Show could be among the big breakout hits of the fall.

– It’s not a return to Deadwood, but Timothy Olyphant will be playing a marshal again, this time in FX’s new drama Lawman. Olyphant will play Raylan Givens, an Elmore Leonard character whose retro approach to being a lawman gets him sent to Kentucky to deal with baddies in his hometown. Bonus: The Shield star Walton Goggins (who so deserved an Emmy nod for the last season of that show) will be among Lawman‘s guest stars.

– Wonder what you’d look like as a Mad Men character? Would you be a chain-smoking, cocktail-swilling shark of an ad exec, or would you just be drawn that way? Find out at MadMenYourself.com, where you can create your own animated Mad Men-era you.

– Degrassi: The Next Generation star Aubrey Graham, who’s better known as red-hot rapper Drake these days, has signed on to co-star with another Degrassi alum, MazinElsadig, in a new Canadian sitcom called Us & Them.

– The Bachelor‘s Chris Harrison and Dancing with the Stars‘ Carrie Ann Inaba have signed a deal to become the new hosts of the TV Guide Channel’s awards show red carpet coverage, beginning with the Emmys on Sept. 20.

– Emmy nominee Sarah Silverman, Jonah Hill, Seth Rogen and the Manning brothers will be among the voice guest stars on the 21st season of The Simpsons, which debuts Sept. 27 on Fox.

– The top six perform on So You Think You Can Dance (8PM ET, Fox)
– Oxygen is airing the 1998 made-for-TV movie gem Gia (8PM), featuring Angelina Jolie (who won a Golden Globe for the role) as real-life, AIDS-stricken ’80s supermodel GiaCarangi and Lost‘s Elizabeth Mitchell as her girlfriend
– Nate and the team try to catch a bad guy by releasing a deadly virus on Leverage (9PM, TNT)
– They’re in Vegas, baby, Vegas on America’s Got Talent (9PM, NBC)
– Velcro suits and cat costumes are part of the fun (?) on I Survived a Japanese Game Show (9PM, ABC)
– On Throwdown with Bobby Flay (9PM, Food Network), Bobby tries to make better sloppy joes than the guys who own NYC eatery Schnipper’s (good luck, Bob – they make a mean sloppy joe)
– It’s the champions round on Top Chef Masters (10PM, Bravo)
– Women who live in different cities swap towns to try and find love on the premiere of SoapNet’s Holidate (10PM)
– The Dark Blue (10PM, TNT) team tries to nab a drug dealer who’s hip to cop tactics
– There’s a Ponzi scheme afoot on The Philanthropist (10PM, NBC)
– More stage moms and their heavily make-up-ed tots will creep you out on Toddlers & Tiaras (10PM, TLC)
– On Verminators (10PM, Discovery): rats and an 11-foot alligator
– Joey may get the boot when he’d rather party and sleep than work on The Real World: Cancun (10PM, MTV)
– And Michael & Michael Have Issues (10:30PM, Comedy Central) with trying to find a date for Marla

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